REMBRANDT'S 
ETCHINGS 

BY 

DAVID  KEPPEL 


FREDERICK  KEPPEL  &  CO. 
NEW  YORK 


Rembrandt's  Mother  turned  to  the  Right 


REMBRANDT'S  ETCHINGS 


THE  eminent  Dutch  authority  Dr.  Schel- 
tema,  in  opening  an  address  on  the  *'Life 
and  Genius  of  Rembrandt,"  at  Amsterdam 
many  years  ago,  related  the  following  story: 

The  famous  Carthaginian  general  Hanni- 
bal— exiled  from  his  country — having  retired 
to  the  court  of  Antiochus  the  Great,  at  Ephe- 
sus,  was  invited  to  hear  a  discourse  by  the 
peripatetic  philosopher  Phormion.  The  ora- 
tor spoke  before  him  of  the  duties  of  a  general 
and  of  the  various  parts  of  the  military  art. 
After  the  close  of  the  discourse  those  who 
were  present,  and  had  listened  with  much  plea- 
sure, asked  the  Carthaginian  what  he  thought 
of  the  philosopher.  Hannibal  made  this  brief 
and  sensible  reply,  "I  have  seen  many  fools 
in  the  course  of  my  life,  but  never  so  great 
a  fool  as  Phormion."  "Assuredly  Hannibal 
was  not  wrong,"  remarks  Cicero,  with  regard 
to  this  anecdote.  "What  could  be  more  fool- 
ish or  more  impudent  than  to  pretend,  with- 
out ever  having  seen  either  camp  or  enemy,  to 
I 


give  lessons  in  the  military  art  to  Hannibal, 
who,  for  so  many  years,  disputed  the  empire 
of  the  world  with  the  Romans? 

"I  should  not,"  said  Dr.  Scheltema,  ''deserve 
a  more  favorable  judgment  if  I  undertook  to 
give  lessons  in  painting,  or  endeavored  to  un- 
veil all  the  riches  of  Rembrandt's  brilliant 
genius." 

Dr.  Scheltema's  story  gives  a  pretty  good 
idea  of  the  feelings  of  any  one  who  under- 
takes to  write  about  Rembrandt. 

Rembrandt  Harmenz  van  Rijn  was  born  at 
Leyden,  July  15,  1607.  He  was  the  son  of  a 
miller  who  lived  close  to  the  western  gate  of 
Leyden,  immediately  behind  his  mill,  which 
crowned  the  rampart  of  the  town.  Rembrandt 
was  the  fifth  of  six  children,  but  his  parents 
were  fairly  well-to-do  and  determined  that 
he  should  have  a  good  education  and  should 
attend  the  Latin  School  in  order  that,  later 
on,  he  should  be  able  to  enter  the  service  of 
the  Republic.  Such  studies  were  not  at  all  to 
his  taste,  however,  and  it  was  not  long  before 
his  father  became  convinced  that  the  boy's  in- 
clination toward  art  must  be  allowed  to  have 
its  way. 

Rembrandt  studied  under  Jakob  van  Sw^a- 
nenburch   and   Pieter   Lastman — neither  of 
them  painters  of  the  first  rank.    This,  how- 
ever, was  of  little  importance,  as  Rembrandt 
2 


was  an  artist  of  such  wonderful  originality 
that  it  is  only  in  a  few  of  his  earliest  plates 
that  we  can  detect  dependence  on  any  prede- 
cessor. He  had  scarcely  started  on  his  career 
when  he  was  far  beyond  them  all,  and  he  car- 
ried the  art  of  etching  to  heights  that  have 
still  to  be  reached  by  any  artist  since  his  day. 

In  1630  Rembrandt  moved  to  Amsterdam, 
and  in  1634  he  married  Saskia  van  Uilenburg, 
who  came  of  a  good  Friesland  family.  Saskia 
lived  for  only  eight  years  after  her  marriage 
— she  died  at  Amsterdam  in  June,  1642,  leav- 
ing Rembrandt  a  son  named  Titus,  who  was 
brought  up  by  his  father  in  his  own  profes- 
sion, but  did  not  distinguish  himself  as  an 
artist. 

The  death  of  Saskia  marks  a  turning-point 
in  Rembrandt's  life,  in  more  ways  than  one. 
Up  to  that  time  he  had  lived  in  comparative 
comfort.  He  had  a  large  house  in  the  Breed 
Strat,  and  this  house  was  filled  with  pictures 
and  other  works  of  art.  His  paintings  seemed 
to  be  greatly  appreciated  by  the  public  and  he 
had  many  pupils.  He  was  very  fond  of  col- 
lecting all  sorts  of  curious  costumes  and  he 
often  painted  or  etched  his  own  portrait  in 
picturesque  garb.  His  etching  Rembrandt 
Leaning  on  a  Stone  Sill  gives  us  a  charming 
picture  of  the  Rembrandt  of  that  time — a 
graceful  elegant  figure  with  abundant  curly 

3 


hair,  a  rich  velvet  cloak,  and  a  flat  velvet  cap 
on  the  side  of  his  head. 

The  etchings  that  belong  to  this  early  period 
are,  many  of  them,  of  exquisite  delicacy  and 
beauty.  The  etching  of  Rembrandt's  Mother 
turned  to  the  Right  is  one  of  his  most  beau- 
tiful things,  and  reminds  us  that  it  was  Rem- 
brandt more  than  any  other  artist  who  taught 
us  what  beauty  and  dignity  there  are  in  the 
faces  of  old  people. 

The  earliest  period  was  also  characterized 
by  spirited  little  sketches  of  beggars,  another 
of  Rembrandt's  artistic  discoveries. 

Throughout  his  career  he  etched  plates  of 
scriptural  subjects,  his  manner  of  treating 
them  varying  according  to  the  ever-changing 
style  of  his  many-sided  genius.  Most  of  the 
early  scriptural  pieces  are  of  small  size  and 
very  delicately  etched.  The  Christ  at  Em- 
maus,  Bartsch  No.  87,  is  usually  included  in 
this  period.  It  appears  to  be  dated  1634,  but 
the  style  of  the  etching  is  so  absolutely  diifer- 
ent  from  Rembrandt's  first  period  that  I  can- 
not help  suspecting  that  what  is  apparently  a 
''3"  was  really  a  "5,"  and  that  the  etching  be- 
longs to  his  last  period.  To  the  early  period 
also  belongs  the  exquisite  little  Landscape 
with  a  Flock  of  Sheep. 

After  Saskia's  death  the  tide  seemed  to 
turn  against  Rembrandt.     He  was  painting 

4 


Rembrandt  Leaning  on  a  Stone  Sill 


Rembrandt  Drawing 


and  etching  with  unprecedented  splendor, 
but  luck  was  against  him  and  his  fortunes  de- 
clined steadily.  Perhaps  the  explanation  of 
the  evil  days  upon  which  Rembrandt  had 
fallen  may  be  looked  for  simply  in  this  fact 
— that  his  work  was  too  great  for  the  people. 
He  certainly  did  not  lack  industry,  and  we 
know  that  he  lived  in  a  very  simple  manner, 
and  that  often,  while  at  work,  his  repast  con- 
sisted of  a  bit  of  bread  and  cheese  or  a  red 
herring.  In  any  case  it  was  a  bad  time  for 
art.  Holland  was  exhausted  by  war,  the 
treasury  was  empty,  and  business  was  almost 
at  a  standstill.  These  conditions  were  felt 
above  all  in  Amsterdam,  where,  in  1653,  there 
were  over  two  thousand  empty  houses. 

The  print  of  Rembrandt  Drawing  shows  us 
the  Rembrandt  of  this  time,  seated  at  an 
open  window,  in  sober  widower's  dress.  It 
is  interesting  and  rather  sad  to  contrast  this 
simple  and  serious  portrait  with  the  plate  of 
Rembrandt  Leaning  on  a  Stone  Sill,  done  nine 
years  earlier. 


7 


Christ  at  Emmaus 


Portrait  of  Jan  Six 


Landscape  with  Three  Cottages 


It  is  to  the  period  after  Saskia's  death 
that  we  owe  the  marvelous  series  of  land- 
scapes, which,  perhaps  more  than  anything 
else,  rank  Rembrandt  as  the  supreme  master 
of  etching.  It  is  one  of  the  chief  glories  of 
Rembrandt's  landscapes,  as  it  is  also  of  his 
portraits,  that  he  completely  loses  himself  in 
his  subject.  His  landscape  produces  on  us 
the  effect,  not  of  a  cleverly  etched  scene  where 
one  is  conscious  of  the  artist,  but  the  effect  of 
out-of-doors  itself. 

It  would  seem  that  each  different  type  of 
natural  landscape  in  the  world  has  to  be 
II 


rediscovered  artistically.  In  a  frontier  coun- 
try the  trail  has  first  to  be  blazed  by  a 
pioneer,  and  in  the  field  of  art  it  takes  a 
master  hand  to  show  that  the  landscape  is 
paintable  at  all.  For  example,  the  French 
landscape  is  generally  regarded  as  being  very 
beautiful  and  very  paintable.  But  the  rea- 
son for  this  lies  probably  less  in  any  pe- 
culiarity of  the  landscape  itself  than  in  the 
fact  that  the  way  to  see  its  beauty  and  the 
way  to  paint  it  were  discovered  by  Corot, 
RousseaUj  and  Daubigny.  English  landscape 
seems  now  admirably  adapted  to  etching,  but 
it  remained  for  Seymour  Haden  to  prove  it 
so.  Rem.brandt  discovered,  once  for  all,  the 
beauty  in  the  flat  Holland  landscape  with  its 
wide  sweep  of  sky,  and  his  discovery  is  none 
the  less  a  stroke  of  genius  that  he  usually 
expresses  the  sky  by  leaving  it  a  perfect  blank. 

Rembrandt  had  two  styles  of  technique 
which  he  used  in  his  landscape  plates.  The 
Landscape  with  a  Hay  barn  is  a  splendid  ex- 
ample of  the  first.  In  this  the  shapes  of  the  foli- 
age are  expressed  with  all  sorts  of  little  curls 
and  twists — usually  in  pure  etching.  In  the 
second  the  foliage  is  expressed  with  stiff  little 
strokes,  and  the  plates  done  in  this  manner 
are  largely  dry-point.  As  in  dry-point  there 
is  so  much  more  resistance  to  the  needle  than 
in  aquafortis,  this  difference  in  technique 
12 


The  Mill 


between  the  dry-point  plates  and  the  bitten 
or  etched  plates  is  onlj^  natural.  In  most  of 
the  plates  the  two  manners  are  more  or  less 
mixed.  The  Landscape  with  Three  Cottages 
is  one  of  the  finest  dry-point  plates  and  is  full 
of  Rembrandt's  beautiful  luminous  black  shad- 
ows. The  Landscape  with  a  Ruined  Tower 
and  a  Clear  Foreground  seems  to  be  mid- 
way between  these  two  methods.  Unlike 
most  of  Rembrandt's  landscapes  it  has  a 
wonderful  stormy  sky,  and  in  the  finest  im- 
pressions, which  are  usually  printed  with  a 
slight  tint  of  ink  over  the  whole  plate,  the 
effect  of  a  somber,  gloomy  day  with  a  high 
wind  is  almost  magical.  The  Mill  has  al- 
ways been  considered  one  of  Rembrandt's 

15 


The  Triumph  of  Mordecai 


best  plates.  It  was  long  believed  to  be  the 
mill  which  belonged  to  Rembrandt's  father; 
this,  however,  seems  to  be  an  error. 

To  illustrate  the  scriptural  pieces  of  the 
middle  period  we  have  chosen  the  Triumph 
of  Mordecai  and  The  Synagogue — the  latter 
perhaps  the  prettiest  of  the  small  scriptural 
plates.  In  the  masterly  etching  Beggars  at 
the  Door  of  a  House  Rembrandt  summed  up 
what  he  had  learned  in  his  first  period  in  re- 
gard to  the  drawing  of  beggars. 

Rembrandt's  material  fortunes,  which  had 
declined  steadily  since  the  death  of  Saskia, 
i6 


Beggars  at  the  Door  of  a  House 


grew  worse  and  worse,  and  in  1656  he  was 
declared  insolvent.  His  house  in  Breed  Strat, 
his  furniture,  his  pictures,  and  everything  else 
that  he  possessed,  were  sold  at  auction.  After 
his  estate  was  settled  his  son  Titus  received 
as  his  heritage  the  sum  equivalent  to  about 
£280,  and  Rembrandt  was  left  to  begin  life 
anew.  In  spite  of  evil  fortune,  however,  it 
was  of  this  period  that  Seymour  Haden — 
with  his  usual  vehemence  of  expression — said: 
"In  the  later  part  of  his  life  he  painted  almost 
like  a  god !" 

There  is  much  obscurity  as  to  his  doings  in 
these  latter  years.  It  is  believed  by  some  that 
he  married  his  former  servant  Hendrickie 
Jaghers.  It  is  known  that  she  took  care  of 
him  for  many  years  when  he  was  poor  and  in 
disrepute,  and  some  of  the  most  beautiful 
paintings  that  Rembrandt  has  left  us  are  por- 
traits of  Hendrickie. 


19 


Portrait  of  Abraham  Franz 


In  etching,  portraits  characterize  Rem- 
brandt's last  period.  The  marvelous  plate  of 
Sylvius  was  done  in  1646,  and  so  belongs  to 
his  middle  period,  but  except  for  that  almost 
all  his  greatest  portraits,  with  the  exception 
of  portraits  of  himself  or  of  members  of 
his  family,  w^ere  done  after  the  year  1650. 
And  this  is  no  matter  for  regret,  for  Rem- 
brandt had  spent  a  long  life  in  studying  men, 
and  at  the  end  he  was  able  to  depict  them 
as  no  one  else  has  ever  been  able  to  do. 
To  illustrate  the  portraits  we  have  chosen 
the  beautiful,  quiet,  contemplative  figure  of 
Clement  de  Jonghe,  the  charming  figure  of 
20 


Portrait  of  Clement  de  Jonghe 


An  Old  Man  with  a  Divided  Fur  Cap 


Portrait  of  Jan  Sylvius 


Portrait  of  Lieven  van  Coppen 


Christ  Preaching 


Jan  Six,  and  the  portraits  of  Abraham  Frajiz 
and  the  writing-master  CoppenoL 

Among  the  scriptural  pieces  one  is  almost 
surprised  to  find  that  the  beautiful,  carefully 
wrought  plate  of  Christ  Preaching  was  as- 
signed by  Rovinski  to  the  year  1652 — if  this 
assumption  is  correct  the  plate  shows  a  curi- 
ous return  to  his  earlier  manner.  In  general, 
the  scriptural  pieces  of  the  last  period  are 
done  with  the  utmost  freedom.  The  Three 
Crosses  and  St.  Francis  are  splendid  examples 
of  this  manner.  The  noble  plate  of  St.  Jerome 

25 


in  an  Italian  Landscape  belongs  to  this  time, 
and  also  the  upright  plate  in  Rembrandt's 
dark  manner,  The  Presentation. 

The  great  master  died  at  Amsterdam  in 
1669. 


The  Presentation 


< 


St.  Jerome  in  an  Italian  LANDSCAPt, 


HROUGHOUT  Rembrandt's  life  his 


1  etching  went  hand  in  hand  with  his 
painting.  His  etchings  are  just  as  true  an  ex- 
pression of  the  man  as  his  paintings,  perhaps 
truer,  being  more  intimate. 

"With  the  exception  of  the  coloring,"  to 
quote  Bartsch,  ''all  that  we  have  said  of  the 
beauties  and  imperfections  of  Rembrandt's 
paintings  applies  equally  well  to  his  etchings. 
They  are  in  the  same  manner  admirable  and 
defective ;  but  their  beauty  strikes  us  so  forci- 
bly that  we  scarcely  heed  their  defects.  A 
vagabond  liberty,  a  picturesque  disorder,  an 
easy  touch,  the  rarest  perception  of  chiaros- 
curo, and  the  talent  of  expressing  the  charac- 
ter and  the  different  ages  of  the  subjects  he 
was  treating  by  touches  thrown  in  as  it  were 
by  chance ;  such  are  some  of  the  elements,  and 
there  are  many  more  which  constitute  the 
merit  of  Rembrandt  as  an  etcher,  which  give 
such  an  inexpressible  charm  to  his  prints." 


It  was  long  believed  that  the  wonderful 
quality  which  Rembrandt  obtained  in  his  etch- 
ings was  due  to  some  mysterious  methods,  the 
secret  of  which  had  perished  with  him.  Bartsch 
was  the  first  to  question  this.  He  became 
convinced  that  the  only  real  secret  of  Rem- 
brandt's etching  lay  in  his  genius  and  that  his 
processes  could  all  be  explained. 

Except  in  portraits  Rembrandt  scarcely 
ever  chalked  the  outline  of  his  designs.  He 
drew  them  at  once  on  the  plate  with  the  same 
freedom  that  one  meets  in  his  rough  pen-and- 
ink  sketches.  This  manner  of  projecting  his 
subject  on  the  plate  is  best  shown  in  the  Man 
Draiving  from  a  Model.  In  other  hands  this 
method  would  perhaps  not  have  been  the  best 
way  to  produce  a  correct  design,  but  it  was  a 
very  sure  means  of  preserving  all  the  fire  of 
the  first  conception. 

The  execution  of  Rembrandt's  plates  is 
sometimes  rough  and  sometimes  finished,  but 
the  lines  cross  each  other  in  such  different  di- 
rections that  it  is  impossible  to  follow  them 
as  we  can  do  in  most  of  the  prints  of  other 
etchers.  Those  velvety  intense  blacks  which 
characterize  Rembrandt's  prints  were  a  neces- 
sity to  him  on  account  of  his  love  for  vivid 
effects  of  lighting,  sharp  contrasts  of  brilliant 
light  and  deep  shadows,  night  pieces  with 
torchlight  and  the  like. 

30 


Man  Drawing 


FROM 


Model 


The  first  "biting"  of  the  plate  gave  him  all 
the  more  delicate  lines  and  so  far  he  seems  to 
have  bitten  the  plate  in  the  usual  manner. 

But  then,  instead  of  going  over  all  the  more 
delicate  parts  of  the  plate  with  "stopping-out 
varnish,"  Rembrandt  seems  to  have  taken  off 
the  old  varnish,  regrounded  the  plate  v^^ith 
transparent  varnish,  and  added  new  series  of 
hatchings  to  his  shadows  in  a  different  direc- 
tion from  the  first  series  of  strokes. 

For  giving  depth  and  warmth  to  the  plate 
he  usually  worked  it  up  with  dry-point,  in  the 
use  of  which  he  was  a  consummate  master. 
He  combined  the  two  in  such  a  manner  that 
it  is  extremely  difficult  to  tell  where  the  bitten 
work  stops  and  the  dry-point  begins. 

The  burin  was  another  instrument  which 
Rembrandt  used  with  the  same  success  as  the 
dry-point,  although  less  frequently.  He  gen- 
erally employed  it  when  he  desired  to  produce 
an  intensity  which  could  not  be  obtained  by 
means  of  aquafortis  and  dry-point.  He  knew 
all  the  resources  of  aquafortis,  but  he  realized 
that  by  its  use  alone  it  was  impossible  to  pro- 
duce narrow  hatchings  composed  of  strokes 
both  fine  and  deep  at  the  same  time.  He 
therefore  renounced  aquafortis  when  he 
wished  to  produce  a  fine  velvety  and  vigorous 
appearance,  persuaded  that  the  burin  alone 
could  give  him  this.    These  shadings  of  burin 

33 


work  were  then  worked  over  with  dry-point 
so  as  to  give  them  a  beautiful  velvety  surface 
and  to  combine  the  burin  work  with  the  bitten 
work.  This  explains  why  the  most  vigorous 
proof  of  the  copy  done  in  aquafortis  by  Basan 
of  the  Burgomaster  Six  appears  crude,  cold, 
and  gray  in  comparison  with  the  original  print. 

Whatever  fashions  have  influenced  the 
world  of  art  during  the  present  generation, 
they  have  not  affected  Rembrandt.  His  fame 
has  grown  steadily  and  surely  with  the  growth 
of  artistic  education.  So  that  to-day,  if  the 
vote  of  all  the  painters  and  etchers  now  living 
were  taken  it  is  probable  that  Rembrandt 
would  be  adjudged,  by  his  influence  as  well 
as  by  his  work,  the  greatest  artist  the  world 
has  known. 

David  Keppel. 

December,  1910. 


34 


Woman  Preparing  to  Dress  after  Bathing 


